


O Rose, Thou Art Sick

by onawingandaswear



Category: Hannibal (TV)
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Confrontation, Dubious Consent, Dubious Morality, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Unrequited Love, Will Figures It Out, both he and Hannibal deal with the consequences, references to cannibalism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-19
Updated: 2013-05-19
Packaged: 2017-12-12 08:14:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,566
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/809343
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onawingandaswear/pseuds/onawingandaswear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Will pieces it together absently as he scrubs clotted cream from a steel mixing bowl. The revelation does not come with panic or revulsion, but with a breathy 'oh,' of quiet resignation, and Will knows he is going to die.</p>
            </blockquote>





	O Rose, Thou Art Sick

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into 中文 available: [O Rose, Thou Art Sick 噢玫瑰，你枯萎了](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1456216) by [alucard1771](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alucard1771/pseuds/alucard1771)



Will pieces it together absently as he scrubs clotted cream from a steel mixing bowl. The revelation does not come with panic or revulsion, but with a breathy 'oh,' of quiet resignation, and Will knows he is going to die. 

“Something the matter?” Hannibal asks, casting an expectant glance.

Will wipes his hands on an unnervingly white dishtowel and moves away from the sink. 

“Are you going to kill me?” he asks, half impressed that his voice stays level through all seven syllables and Hannibal watches him with a neutral expression, even as his brow furrows with quiet understanding.

“It would seem I have no choice.” Hannibal says, placing his hands palm down on the countertop, in an display of disarm highly uncharacteristic of his normal body language.

It must say a great deal about Will that he doesn’t take this opportunity to run. 

“No, you have a choice, you always have a choice. You’re just refusing to acknowledge it.” 

“What is my choice?” Hannibal asks, genuinely curious. “That I let you live? There is nothing past this for you.”

“You don’t know that. You don’t know what I’ll do. You--you were feeding me, you cared for me, you--”

“I loved you?” Hannibal offers, thumbing the ridge of the cutting board still littered with bits of rocoto pepper.

“You _loved_ me?” Will parrots, tone lilting as he brings a hand to his face, pinching the bridge of his nose tightly. “And you would kill me to protect yourself?”

“My actions are as much about protecting you as protecting myself. If you survive me, survive what I have done to you, I have no doubt you would be locked away as surely as I.” Hannibal tells him.  

“It doesn’t work like that,” Will stumbles, refuting words already heavy on his tongue before he even speaks.

“It does in a world that already sees you as a killer. This was never my original intention.”

“Then why did you do it? Why did you let me--” Will trails off, his throat tight. “I can’t lose you too.”

Hannibal doesn’t respond, and Will does not miss the motion of the man reaching for a knife from the block beside the sink.

“I don’t care if you kill _me_ ,” Will says finally, and he can’t keep the resignation from his tone. “I care that _you_ are the one killing me, do you understand?”

Hannibal circles around the island and Will steels himself for a blow that doesn’t come.

“Shall we make this your design, Will?” Hannibal asks, and shows Will the blade he balances in one hand, a slim boning knife with an uncommonly serrated edge. Hannibal’s other hand comes to cup Will’s cheek, thumb caressing the stubbled skin gently, and Will knows the affection Hannibal is showing is compensatory; making up for lost time or simply reconciling conflicting emotional attachment through physical contact.

“I can’t even be angry with you,” Will says finally, drawing his gaze away from the knife and up to Hannibal’s face. The man who only moments ago had delighted in showing him how to prepare a white-wine sauce. “But I guess that’s the sick part, right, Doctor Lecter? My _empathy_?” Will spits the last word with a venom he’s possessed for far too long.

Hannibal smiles, and Will wishes the other man would bare his teeth, laugh at him in this moment of weakness, do something to make himself a villain, a psychopath, but there is nothing. Nothing to separate the Hannibal Lecter that tried to chase away his nightmares from the Hannibal Lecter that had killed so damn many and was ready to do the same to him.

“It is understandable.” Hannibal comforts, hand still uncomfortably warm on Will’s cheek.

Will watches Hannibal’s eyes, and wonders how he missed it, missed this terrible thing lurking beneath Hannibal’s skin.

“And if I hadn’t figured it out?”

Hannibal motions in the direction of the dining room, knife angled to where Will knows the table is set for two, and he has his answer.

“If circumstances were different,” Hannibal starts, stepping around Will to block his route to the door. “I would have continued like this.”

“What, in a parody of normalcy?”

“No, in my quite abnormal existence with you none the wiser.”

“Will you at least take care of my dogs?”

Hannibal makes a face that under different circumstances Will would find hilarious.

“I do not find pleasure in harming animals.” Hannibal says pithily.

“But you’ll find pleasure in harming me.” Will counters.

Hannibal’s wry smile falls away, his face clouded in remorse.

“I will not lie to you, when I take your life, I will feel intense emotional and physical stimulation.”

“You’ll get hungry.” Will cuts in, voicing the previously unspoken implication.

“Yes,” Hannibal’s hand is back, smoothing Will’s furrowed brow with a gentleness that should not be present in this moment. “But that is simply psychological conditioning. With you, I will feel immense,” Hannibal trails off, glancing at the blade between them; and Will knows he could grab for the weapon, but he doesn’t. He’s half ashamed he’s resigned himself to whatever fate Hannibal has deigned to bestow upon him.

“I will miss you.” Hannibal says finally, watching Will with tired eyes. “I will mourn you.”

“I understand you, even if I don’t forgive you for what you’re about to do, I understand.”

“I know.” Hannibal leans in to press a kiss to Will’s lips, and Will doesn’t pull away from the foreign action like he assumes he should.

Will can distantly taste the sauce he’d just helped to prepare, if only in his own small way, and he laughs against Lecter’s mouth at the realization that he’s concerned about his cooking skills in the face of imminent death and whatever the hell this is between them.

“What is it?” Hannibal asks, genuinely confused, and Will can’t stop the tears that cloud his vision.

“I put too much tarragon in the sauce,” Will breathes, unsure if the sound that will come out of his mouth next will be a laugh or a sob. Everything is so pathetically intimate and calm and for the first time he truly understands the allure, this genuine human connection in the face of inevitable oblivion; and it’s not Hannibal, it’s Will. 

It’s all Will.

“If you’re going to eat me,” Will says, voice growing hoarse and demanding as he meets Hannibal’s amused gaze. “You will eat all of me. I want you to suck the meat off my bones and remember with every bite that you 'loved' me, you fed me and you protected me. You will make the greatest dishes you’ve ever tasted using my flesh, and you will never be able to compare anyone to me. Do you understand?”

Hannibal looks surprised, almost proud, and Will can finally see a hint of madness behind the man’s eyes. 

The knowledge doesn’t offer the relief he’d hoped for.

“I will do my best to honor your wishes.” Hannibal tells him, eyes locked with Will’s, and Will takes a slow breath, not quite sure what he expected from this moment.

“Will it hurt?”

“For a brief moment, yes, but you will not suffer long. I care for you too much to cause you undue harm.”

Hannibal sounds so damned sure, so confident in his mercy and Will laughs outright.

“Take care of my dogs.”

Hannibal nods, and lets his touch linger on Will’s cheek. “I do care for you.”

“I know. You care as much as you are able.”

Will barely has time to blink before searing pain erupts along his throat and he’s drowning in his own blood. He fights the panic that is trying to set in and lets himself fall, right into Hannibal’s waiting arms.

“Hush, hush,” Hannibal is whispering, stroking Will’s hair and pressing kisses to his face, and all Will can think, as shock sets in and his vision darkens, is that this is ending exactly how it began. 

With a knife and a cannibal.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Once again, I’m sorry to be the one to break the news about Will,” Jack sighs with remorse, but still finds the impropriety to open the refrigerator and peek inside. “That is a great deal of meat, expecting company?”

Hannibal pauses, only half of the shallots beneath his blade in pieces.

“It is quite nosy to peek in your host’s fridge,” Hannibal tells him. “However, to answer your question, no, I am expecting the company of none but myself. I am taking some time to process Will’s passing, among other things.” Hannibal returns to his task, refusing to meet Jack’s no doubt sympathetic gaze in a play at mournful submission.

“Well, let me know if you change your mind about company, it looked like you had some fine cuts of meat in there.”

“The finest, but I believe I need some time alone. Have a good evening, Jack.”

“Good night, Doctor.”

Jack departs and Hannibal is left alone with his thoughts and imperfectly cut green onions. He uses the flat of the blade to slide the mass of pale green into the sink and reaches for another bunch. The sauce reducing on the stove is ruined by Jack's poorly timed conversation, and only perfection will do for this meal.

Hannibal pats the shining cut of meat beside the chopping block tenderly.

“I know, dear Will. Not good enough. Not yet.”

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Title is taken from the William Blake poem, "The Sick Rose". And hey, feel free to drop me a line on my tumblr if you'd like to chat or stay updated on what I'm working on: onawingandaswear.tumblr.com


End file.
